We’re close to the midpoint of the minor league baseball season, so I thought it might be fun to take a look at how the Phillies’ prospects are faring as they work their way towards Citizens Bank Park.

I’ll work off of the top 30 list from Phuture Phillies, as James did a great job with it and it’s remarkably comprehensive.

What is it that causes us to “grow up?” What I mean is not the physical growth where we turn from kids into adolescents and then adults, and I certainly don’t mean the process of acquiring the trappings of a grown-up life — job, house, kids, money, etc. Because we all know that there are grown-ups who act like children, and there are children whose circumstances force them to be grown-ups.

I’m talking about becoming the sort of person who is an adult: intellectually, and more importantly, emotionally. The person who properly takes the blame when he’s made a mistake, who shows up on time, who is open to new and rational ideas, and who is honest with himself and his family about who he is. You need not go to college to be this sort of person, nor have a serious job, or a big house, or win any awards. Simply put, living your life well on a daily basis is enough. If there’s food on the table, a roof overhead, then that is enough.

I don’t recall magically becoming more adult when I went to college, or when I turned a certain age. Being 21 may have qualified me to buy alcohol in the United States, but that arbitrary benchmark wasn’t it either. It was gradual, for sure. I grew to realize that my parents had given me an exceptional head start into this world, and that I love my two older sisters very much, and the four of them alone constituted the best friends I can and will ever have.

And it’s never done — this growing-up thing. Even when I’m done school, I want to keep learning, maybe more than I do now, with a year left in my college education. I can continue to be more punctual, because being late is one of the more selfish things I’m capable of, and it’s not fair to anyone who expects me to make him or her wait. And I can always be a better friend, son, grandson, student, brother, and athlete.

Recommended Tweeter: @DrewMagary. The best thing Deadspin has going for it currently.

This is my blog/website/thing. Some might call it a bolg. Others, a blob, perhaps a blobber. I’m here because I love to write, and James from the most excellent Phuture Phillies gave me an itch I needed to scratch with his new site. So, as my site’s namesake might say:

The best spitter for distance on the West Side

“Get on with it then.”

I’ll write about sports (lacrosse and baseball, mostly), TV (Mad Men, mostly) and whatever else greases my gears. I don’t think I’m anything special as a writer, but my good friends and former Daily Collegian colleagues @Matt_Fortuna, @MinkNate, and @S_Hennessey are, so follow them on Twitter and read their bomb scribages for mlb.com and Golf Digest and probably Grantland in the future.